Listening to the Deaf

American Sign Language 1 made me a better listener, as ironic as that sounds, in more ways than one.  It reminded me about the pretty and ugly parts of what it was to be human.

December 2013

From the beginning, I always had this fascination for American Sign Language (ASL) but never had the opportunity to take it, especially being an international student from outside of the United States. Some of the reasons why I decided to take this course in the first place was the idea of it being the only language that communicated visually and my intention to better understand the community closely associated with ASL—the Deaf. With every class I went to, however, my goals and interests expanded in ways I never would have imagined. I came into ASL thinking that it would look cool to communicate gesturally and master quick hand movements but came out of it realising how much more beautiful it was within the context of Deaf culture and the Deaf community.

I recall the first lesson in which the whole class discovered that we would be taught by an actual Deaf person and we would only be having an interpreter for the first class. That, in itself, raised a lot of questions in me—How would we communicate effectively? Would it be difficult to single-handedly teach a bunch of hearing college students?--but the professor's indifference to the challenges and her contagious enthusiasm in every class proved all of us wrong and has become an amazing inspiration and lesson for me about resilience, positivity and courage that the whole Deaf community shared. I also remember Ruth telling us about Deaf pride and how she was content and happy with how she was—an idea that some hearing people have struggled with because of the misleading idea of Deaf people having a disability. This expanded my interest to all kinds of communication “disorders” and learning “disabilities”--terms which Ruth pointed out—and I personally agree—were terms she didn't like and were better regarded as “differences.” I was also saddened by people's ignorance and I felt eager to make them understand that these communities were just as capable of living life, they just had a different way of doing and learning certain things. That doesn't make it wrong or make them less capable in living life to the fullest. Thirdly, I was drawn to one of the visitors invited to our class, a former student who went on to become a Sign Language interpreter—a field of study I am very interested in learning more about—that encouraged us to spend a semester or a summer at Gallaudet University which has evolved into one of my goals in the future. Hence, it was little moments like these in the classroom and during ASL lunches that shaped my understanding of the struggles and triumphs of Deaf people in a hearing world.

My final paper was about how ASL impacted early childhood development of the hearing and Deaf linguistically, cognitively, in their self-esteem, and communication. The research has fine tuned my direction of study on how people learn and communicate, especially those with communication or learning differences. And perhaps the role of the creative arts (art and dance) in serving as an alternative means of communication and expression for those who cannot or don't work well in verbal settings. I do feel, however, that I still need a lot more practice to communicate fluently in ASL and perhaps more exposure and immersion into Deaf culture to better my understanding.

In truth, I have found myself learning so much more in this class because of the different perspective we learn things by and for being a class that teaches us the most essential thing: how to be more human.